Grants and Contributions:

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Title:

Micropower converters for internet-of-things devices

Agreement Number:

RGPIN

Agreement Value:

$120,000.00

Agreement Date:

May 10, 2017 -

Organization:

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Location:

Ontario, CA

Reference Number:

GC-2017-Q1-03175

Agreement Type:

Grant

Report Type:

Grants and Contributions

Additional Information:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

Recipient's Legal Name:

Gregori, Stefano (University of Guelph)

Program:

Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Program Purpose:

Thanks to the miniaturization of electronic circuits, computing, communication and sensing functions can be concentrated into smaller and smaller elements, and then integrated seamlessly into the objects around us, which in turn can become "smart" and interconnected in a widespread "internet of things" (IoT). However these physical objects have limited resources in terms of available energy, computing power, and communication bandwidth. Therefore, we must pay special attention to resource efficiency, if we want to develop IoT devices and applications that can be scaled up to fulfil the promise of the smart world.
This research program will develop new micropower converters to be integrated on the same silicon chip containing other computing, communication, and sensing functions. An IoT object will need only one chip, which will be tiny, economical, and more energy efficient than conventional devices. The micropower converters will improve energy efficiency by supplying optimized voltage levels to the different functions implemented on chip, and by scaling down the supply voltage when digital circuits operate in energy-saving mode. The micropower converters will also extend the operating conditions of the IoT devices by adjusting the wobbly voltage generated by a battery or by an energy harvesting device.

The limitations imposed by energy constraints are already sharply curbing the performance designers might otherwise expect. Therefore the new micropower converters will address this energy challenge by enabling distributed power processing for jointly optimizing energy and operating performance. Such optimization will lead to significantly enhanced system efficiency, battery lifetime, and extended operation on energy harvesting. In turn these improvements will be key to create sustainable IoT applications unimaginable today, which will change the way we live and will be a major engine for creating new products and services.